CHILL IT (GLOBAL WARMING)--WHAT MILLENIALS (AND THE REST OF US) CAN DO ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE

Chill It (Global Warming:) what millenials (and the rest of us) can do about it.

There are global Limits to Growth, as Dennis Meadows has tried to teach us. Meadows has influenced my life. 

Meadows is still sharing.Read his interview in "Der Spiegel" (in English.) 

But why has Meadows’ message not sunk in? It seems so obviously accurate and truthful. But it goes against the lies of politicians and the needs of industrial progress. Against the real needs of an overpopulated world.

Fortunately, new crusaders including youthful millennials are coming to the fore. Perhaps they can get the attention of the rich and powerful.

One great example--Greta Thunberg, a sixteen-year-old activist from Sweden. The tale is told in “The New Yorker,” September 30, 2019. I love her ability to express her concern--her outrage, her spunk. 

September 30, 2019. Greta arrives in the U.S. after sailing  to cross the Atlantic from Europe to New York as a protest against fuel-guzzling air flights. In New York she addressed a meeting at the United Nations. (Upon her arrival by boat she was asked, "What do you think about New York?" She answered, "It smells." Source: New Yorker article.)

Just at this current moment the anti-green, pro-fossil fuel United States government autocratically reverses the baby-steps made earlier on climate control. Perfect for Greta and millions of millennials cry out and resist. And resist they must, along with the rest of us. we older “limits” people--Dennis Meadows and the rest of us--keep up the work.

Greta and others believe there’s about a decade left until we cross a dividing line. After we cross the line, the battle is lost. Now’s the time for action.

Personally, in the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. I’ve watched the winter snows entirely disappear from the slopes of Mt. Hood, east of Portland, OR. That did not happen when I was young. I’ve watched the retreat of the Nisqually Glacier on Mt. Rainier, east of Tacoma, Washington. On the road to Paradise as a child then peeking out of the window of my parents' car, I saw the Nisqually River emerge from the snout of the Nisqually glacier, easily within sight from the bridge. Last year I drove the same route. The glacier was not in sight from the bridge. The glacier had shrunk back around a corner. See what I mean on this map. (click to expand, look for Nisqually River and the Glacier.)  

Mt. Rainier: Nisqually Glacier (it's melting, losing to climate change) in its valley, lower right.

In the public domain via Wikimedia

What’s to be done? Let Greta Thunberg be our model. And pick up where Meadows points us to go. Alert voters! Elect candidates who’ll put environmental sanity high on their agenda. To honor the limits to growth do this: Read. Get motivated. Act. Influence others.

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